by Alec Waugh
Chapter XXI
Mabel Carstairs
At the same time that in the hall of a front flat Julia Terance was reading an expressed letter, in the grillroom of the Ritz Hotel a dinner party of four people was breaking up. It had been a happy, intimate little party. The room had been quiet, with music playing faintly from the lounge. The dinner had been well chosen. The Richebourg admirably mellow. The circumstances had been as they should be at a celebration dinner. And there was a genial smile of successfully proffered hospitality on Mr. Anderson’s face as he laid his hand on Leon Carstairs’ shoulder.
“I hope, my dear boy,” he said, “that this is going to be the forerunner of many other parties, that you and your wife will come and spend a week-end with us shortly. I assure you that for me one of the happiest things about this new association of ours, is the opportunity that it is going to give me to see more of you. I’ve always wanted to, you know. I’ve always been fond of you. But I felt that it would be hardly fitting till you were actually a partner with us. There’ll be no such difficulties now.”
And his hand pressed affectionately on Leon’s shoulder.
“He really is a dear old boy,” said Leon as he drove back with Mabel. “I think I’ve misjudged him all along. He’s old-fashioned and Victorian, but he’s a dear.”
“And he’s really fond of you.”
“That’s just what I’ve never felt before.”
“He is though. It’s the clearest thing I’ve seen.”
The garage was a hundred yards from Carstairs’ house. Mabel stood by him while he backed the car into the lock-up. She looked mouselike in her ermine cloak. As they turned into the road, he took her arm. The sense of success and the well-being that follows a good dinner made him affectionate. He drew her close to him. From her hair rose the scent of mignonette.
“I think you ought to be really happy in the office now,” she said. “I think our good time’s just beginning.”
For the last four years Leon had slept on a divan in his dressing-room. But to-night on this day of triumph he felt a need to talk. When he had changed into pyjamas he tapped at his wife’s door.
“Can I come in and talk to you?” he asked.
She was seated at her dressing-table, brushing her hair. Over a pale blue nightdress she wore a green Chinese coat. A shaded lamp spread a soft light over her yellow dressing-table, on to a three-sided silvered mirror, on to powder pots and scent bottles and enamel hair brushes; shadowing the corner of the room, and the wide low bed with its blue silk edged blankets and cream-tinted sheets. Though it was late June, the night was cool, and Mabel had turned the switch of the electric fire. At the doorway Leon paused, enchanted. It was like a lovely picture. The room was eloquent of warmth and elegance and ease. As he came into the room Mabel turned her head and smiled; a fond and friendly smile such as he had not seen upon her lips for many months.
“Leon dear, have you thought about what we’re going to do?” she asked.
“Going to do?”
“Now that you’ve come into this partnership. It’s going to make a good deal of difference, isn’t it? We’ll be a lot better off, won’t we? I was wondering whether you’ld still want to sell this house. We always said we would as soon as we could afford to. We never meant to stay here. We didn’t really like it to begin with, did we? Do you remember that first time we came here?”
He remembered the day very well. A bleak November morning just after the birth of their first child, with Mabel in the full glow of her recovered beauty.
“We just said we’ld stay for a year or two,” Mabel said. “And then there was Violet, and somehow I began to like the place. It became a part of me. I don’t think I’ld like to leave it now. There’s such a lot of our lives bound up here. Don’t you think so, Leon?” He nodded his head.
“The best part of our lives, I suppose, really.”
She smiled at that. “Perhaps. But think how much good there is to come. I was thinking that we might take a small house in the country, down by the river somewhere. It would be such fun. We could have people down to stay with us. We’ld see our friends as we never have a chance of seeing them in London, at leisure, and at ease. We could have such jolly times.”
Swinging round on the small stool she began to talk eagerly, happily, her face alight. And before Leon Carstairs’ eyes, as he sat on the bed’s edge watching her, there rose up a picture of how pleasant a thing life might become for them, now that the future’s uncertainty had been removed. There was no country like England for enjoyment if you had just enough money for amusement. People were content with simple things. People would like coming down out of the noise of London to a quiet garden by the river. Mabel was right. He’ld see his friends under jollier circumstances than he ever had before. And he’ld have a chance of seeing people that he never had before, people he had felt shy of entertaining in London. A place in the country would make all the difference to his life.
“We’ld have such fun,” Mabel was saying, and she began to make up the first party they would have. Who should be asked with whom? How would this person get on with that? “Darling, it would be heavenly; couldn’t we get one now, straight away for what’s left of the summer?”
It was the concrete statement of a date that roused Leon out of his dream. A cottage by the river. Week-end parties, a comfortable and easy life. But that was not what was going to happen to him. It was not for the sake of that that he had striven for this partnership; it was in order that he might marry Julia that he had worked. He was not going to take a cottage in the country. He was going to elope with Julia to some other and smaller house. There would be the squalor and publicity of divorce. Instead of more money there would be less money. Instead of friendship with Anderson there would be disapproval. Anderson would feel he had been cheated. There would be no happiness for him in his work. It was this and not that other picture that awaited him.
The knowledge was a cold wind blowing on him. He felt so warm and happy in this comfortable present. He did not want to embark on the cold seas of adventure. He wanted to shut away the thought of what lay ahead. He was so happy here. And there was Mabel rising from the stool and coming over and standing in front of him. He had taken one of her hands in his and was playing with her fingers. “Darling,” she was saying, “these months have been pretty difficult for you, haven’t they?” Her eyes were soft and tender, as they had been in early days. And he was agreeing with her. Yes, they had been difficult, more of a strain than he could realise now.
“I know it was, my sweet, and I wasn’t the help I should have been. But it was a strain on me, too. I’ve had my worries. It wasn’t that I didn’t realise. If you knew how proud of you I am.” Smiling, she had lifted her arms and folded them about his neck. They were warm and soft: scented faintly with mignonette. They were resolute, they were a protection against all the dangers that the future held. With her lips close against his ear, “It’s going to be all right now,” she whispered.
Chapter XXII
The Long Awaited
With a quick preoccupied step Julia Terance hurried on the following day to the Soho restaurant where she were lunching with Leon Carstairs. During the morning’s work she had made up her mind on what she wanted done. She knew by now how weak and irresolute Leon was. Of himself he would decide nothing. From henceforth it must be herself who held the helm. There must be no vacillation now. The point must be got down to straight away.
And so it was at random that she answered Leon’s greetings and agreed with him over the choice of lunch. The moment that the waiter had left them she leant forward across the table.
“Leon,” she said, “I am so happy about this. I can’t tell you just how happy. For both our sakes. And I know what you’re going to say now. That divorce is a long business. That it will be a year at least before we’re free to marry, but darling, I don’t want to worry about that. We’ve waited so long. I want to begin our new life straight away.”
“B
ut how can we? My work’s in London.”
“I know that. I’ld much rather, of course, we could go abroad and stay away till it had all blown over. But since we can’t——”
“What are you suggesting, then?”
“The next best thing. That we should take a flat or house and brave it out in London.”
“That would mean you being cited as intervener.”
“That wouldn’t worry me.”
“But the publicity!”
“Publicity! That’s only what other people think of one, and I’m long past caring about that. No, no, my dear, there’s only one thing for us to do. This has all gone on much too long. You do see that, Leon, don’t you?”
He hesitated. There was a dubious calculating look upon his face, as though he was searching for the exact words that would express what he had to say; a look that puzzled Julia. What on earth’s the matter with him, she thought.
“You do agree with me, Leon, don’t you?” she repeated.
But still he hesitated.
“It’s not quite as simple as you seem to think,” he said. “It’s. . .” he paused. “Dearest,” he went on. “I’ve been in this world a good twelve years longer than you have. And I know just what a mess a divorce can be.”
It was said so quietly and so affectionately that Julia did not realise at first its implication.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“That divorce is about the wretchedest thing that can come to anyone. It’s like a bad apple in a basket. It poisons everything it touches. One can never escape from it. And you’re so young; you’ve the whole of your life in front of you. I don’t want you to be involved in anything like that through me.”
There was no doubt about his meaning now.
“Are you trying to tell me,” Julia asked, “that now you are free to marry me you don’t want to?”
“I’m trying to tell you that it would be a ghastly mistake for a person like yourself to be involved in a divorce suit.”
She looked him straight in the eyes. His voice had been soft and wooing. But in his eyes she could read one thing only. Terror. Terror lest she should make a scene. That was all he was thinking, all he was caring. And in another minute, if she let him, he would be telling her that love was independent of official ties: that love was the wind that blew: that they would still go on loving one another: that whatever happened they must remain friends: that she must be brave in the future as she had been in the past. Bravery! These married men who messed your life up; who wearied you with tales of how good their wives were and then when they’d kicked you downstairs, said, “My God, the girl’s got pluck.” In another minute, the relief that she had made no scene would have loosened the full flood of eloquence. And she could not stand it. It was just too much. She rose to her feet and reached for the bag that she had hung over the opposite chair.
“What are you doing?” Leon asked.
“I’m going.”
“Oh, well. Yes, perhaps it is as well. Look here, I’ll ring you up tomorrow.”
“You can do anything you like,” she answered.
With fast furious steps she walked back to Brooke Street. So that was that, then. He did not want her. He had had her youth, her constancy, her love. For his sake she had left her home, had abandoned the comforts of home for a poky little fourth floor flat: had spent her days working instead of playing: had ruined for his sake, the carefree years that should have been the jolliest in her life. And this was her reward. He had talked about marriage in the days when he had been free to talk about marriage, because there had been no danger of his being taken at his word. But now that he was free to marry her, he made excuses. It was the old story. He had had her and had enough of her. Leon was not going to upset his life for the sake of something he had already had. He might talk about the damage of a divorce suit to a young girl. But who ever thought of anything except themselves. That was all there was to it. He had had what he wanted and he was through. And all he had cared about, after all they had shared together, was her not making a scene in public.
Jean Ryland welcomed her return with extreme astonishment.
“You’ve not been away half an hour. Not much of a lunch, that.”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
And with an angry concentration Julia set herself to the task of arranging a new stack of models. Slowly the afternoon wore on. The telephone rang every few minutes. Clients came in and were difficult about refittings. Julia’s head ached and her eyes ached, and her legs. She was tired, tired, tired. Then just before half-past five, Prew Catholic herself came in flustered and agitated. Some parcel or other had been misdirected. A client had written personally to complain.
“It’s really absurd,” she said. “It’s the kind of mistake that a fourteen year old clerk from a board school wouldn’t make.”
It was the last blow. She had had enough. She was not going to stay in a position where people like Prew Catholic could abuse her. If people were going to be through with her, well then, she could be through with them. She made no reply. She walked through to the mannequin’s dressing-room; took down her hat and bag and walked back into the shop, looked for a moment Prew Catholic steadily in the eyes, then turned away.
“I quit,” she said.
Chapter XXIII
The Following Spring
Drowsily Julia turned over in her bed. The room was dark, but the luminous clock on her bedside table pointed at half-past ten. As late as that, she thought, as she lifted her hand and pressed the bell push behind her head. Lazily content she lay back, watching the maid turn back the heavily brocaded curtains, letting a stream of faint March sunlight flood with amber light the large high room with its soft brown wallpaper, and black framed etchings, its mirrored wardrobe and deeply cushioned chair; lay there, while the maid turned the switch of the electric fire, and later set at her side the breakfast tray with its coffee, iced grape-fruit, crisp toast and marmalade; remembering as she lay there how nine months earlier she would have felt, waking on such a morning at a quarter to eight to the clatter of the alarm clock, heavy-eyed after five hours’ dancing and four hours’ sleep, with the knowledge that she had to be at work at half-past nine, and that if she were not to have her bath before the slattern who “did” for her arrived, there would not be enough gas to heat the range. “I can never have really enjoyed a dance in those days,” she thought. “I must have always had the feeling that there was going to be hell next morning.” Though even as she said it she knew that it had not really been like that. She had thought, “It’s going to be awful, but it’s worth it,” and the knowledge that next morning it was going to be awful had made these last hours the more worth while.
On her breakfast tray were two letters beside her copy of The Times. One was in Prew Catholic’s handwriting.
“Julia, dear,” the letter ran, “I suppose it is no good asking you, but I am going to open another shop and I do wish you would run it for me. I was terribly sorry about the quarrel last July. It was my fault, all of it. Although I don’t suppose you will want to, I just had to ask you before I asked anyone else. We would do it on a partnership basis.”
Pensively as she read, Julia tapped the hard edge of the envelope against her teeth. It was a nice letter; it flattered her. And perhaps she was getting a little tired of doing nothing. It had been marvellous at first to be rid of the responsibilities of the flat, the hours of strenuous and exacting work. At first it had been like a holiday long overdue; but one wearied of holidays after a while, one had to be doing something. And if this new shop were to be run on a basis of partnership, there would be a considerable inducement to throw her lot into it. It might be fun; it might be worth it. Anyhow, she was not going to refuse it at once.
The other letter was from Melanie.
“Dearest,” it ran, “I know you will be pleased. I want you to be the first to know I am going to have a baby, and I want you to promise to be its godmother. I think it will be a son.”
She turned after her breakfast to The Times. She opened it always at the Court page first. As she did so she gave a start. At the head of the column was Jean Ryland’s name; below it the announcement of a marriage to take place shortly, and beside it a name unfamiliar to her, a name that Jean had never spoken; the name of some one, as likely as not, that Jean had only met in the last few weeks.
It would be like Jean, that, to get engaged to marry in a hurry, just as she had fallen in love with Gavin Todd, at first sight almost. What had happened about Todd, she wondered? She had read in the papers of his visit to America, his victories in New York, of the fight he had put up in the open championship. She knew that all right, but as to what had happened between Jean and Gavin, that she did not know; that she would never know. While it lasted it had been real enough, but whatever it was, it was over now; Jean had got over it, had begun again, just as sooner or later every one began again. Just as she herself would. Nine months back she had thought her life was over. But it wasn’t. It would begin again just as Jean’s had done.